The Catskill 3500 Club

The Catskill
3500 Club is an organization dedicated to climbing and protecting
those Catskill peaks over 3500 feet. To become a member of the club,
you must climb all 35 peaks over 3500 feet as well 4 designated peaks
a second time in the winter. About half of the peaks are trailless and
require bushwhacking and map and compass skills. The trailless peaks
have canisters to register the climbs. As far as I know very few New
England hikers have much interest in this list.

Trailwrights List

For all of the above lists there are no restrictions on how many
peaks may be done on a single trip. The
Trailwrights (a trail
maintaining organization) have a different set of rules for the NH
4,000 footers: only one peak may be claimed on one hike. In
addition, they recognize a peak if the col between it and its
higher neighbors is over 100 feet, which leads to a much longer,
with 72 peaks. They also require a total of 72 hours of trail
maintenance work with an accepted group.

Gene Daniel, in a posting, explains the genesis of the
Trailwright's approach:

In any case, so far as the Trailwrights 72 Summits list is
concerned, it was invented by Hal Graham because he wanted to have
an excuse to make more hikes to summits above 4000 feet in New
Hampshire - some old ones (e.g. the Carters, 6 peaks in all) and
some new ones (Southwest Twin, West Osceola, etc.). He invented a
game that fulfilled his particular interests and there are others
who found it intriguing. Remember, you don't have to play my game
or Hal's game or any other someone's game - you can always invent
you own, and make your own game - just like Hal
did.

In addition to the list you
may want to look short notes on the
extra peaks they require.

Beyond the Northeast

Though this site is dedicated to the Northeast some may be
interested in a few pointers to peakbagging elsewhere.

Closer to the Northeast we have the South
Beyond 6,000 peaks in the Southern Appalachians (North Carolina
and Tennessee).

A different approach is taken by the
Highpointers Club, whose
members have reached (by any means!) the highest point of each
state.

An obvious extension of the Highpointers idea is to reach the
high point of every county in one or more states, and there is a County Highpointers site for those so
inclined.

In Continental Europe the big list, of course, is the 4,000 meter
peaks in the Alps. The official UIAA
list, based on a complex set of criteria (topographic,
morphological and mountaineering), has 82 peaks. There is also an
"enlarged list of lesser summits", which are above 4,000 meters but do
not meet the listed criteria. A club, the 4000's Club,
gathers those who have climbed at least 30 of the official peaks.

The primary UIAA criterion is a surprising low prominence of 30
meters, roughly half the prominence criterion used in the much lower
Appalachians!
For lists of 4,000 meter peaks based on a prominence of 100 meters
see either Mountains
above 4000 meter in The Alps (which lists 51 peaks) or The
Alpine 4000 meter peaks (which lists 50 peaks).